Stolen

"Calm yourself, Sava

I winced. Another guard accident? So soon? Now Ruth and Sava

"I didn't do anything!" Sava

"Of course you didn't," Carmichael snapped. "Now get out of the way. All of you."

"There's no need for all this equipment," Matasumi said. "There weren't any vital signs when I arrived. It's too late."

"I'll say when it's too late," Carmichael said.

No vital signs? That sounded bad. When I wheeled into the room, Sava

"I didn't do anything! "she said.

"I know," I murmured. "I know."

I touched her head awkwardly and stroked it, hoping I wasn't petting her like a dog. Consoling distraught children wasn't one of my strengths. Actually, I could say with some certainty that it was something I had never been called on to do before in my life. I sca

"Where's Ruth?" I asked.

Sava

"Oh no," I whispered.

Sava

"Of course not," I said, pulling her back to me and praying she hadn't seen my initial reaction.

Matasumi turned on the four guards who'd come down with me. "I want to know what happened."

"We just got here," one said. He motioned to the guards surrounding the bed. "They were on the scene first."

Matasumi hesitated, then stepped toward the bed and tapped one guard's arm. As the guard turned, a commotion erupted in the hallway. Two more guards burst in, guns in hand.

"Please!" Matasumi said. "We didn't call for reinforcements. Return to your posts."

Before they could move, another guard entered, accompanied by Leah.

"What-" Matasumi sputtered. He stopped and regained his composure with a quick intake of breath. "Why is Ms. O'Do

"When I passed her cell, I noticed she was quite agitated," the young guard said, traces of color blossoming on his cheeks. "I-uh-used the intercom to inquire and she-uh-asked if she could see what was going on."

"You do not release a subject from a cell. Ever. Return her immediately."

Leah pushed past Matasumi, edging through the group until she was right at the bedside. When she saw Ruth, she gasped and wheeled to face Sava

"Oh," she said, hands flying to her mouth, eyes fixed on Sava

"As I've been asking for the past ten minutes," Matasumi said.

The guard he'd tapped stepped away from the bed. "I was walking past on my rounds and I saw the old-Miss Winterbourne on her bed. The kid was leaning over her. I thought something was wrong, like maybe she'd had a heart attack, so my partner and I opened the door. We found the clock beside them on the floor. Blood splattered on it. Miss Winterbourne's skull bashed in."

Sava

"Oh, you poor thing," Leah said, hurrying toward us. "What a horrible accident."

"It-it wasn't me," Sava

"Whatever happened, it's not your fault, hon."

Leah reached for Sava

After a moment, Leah turned to the group surrounding the bed. She cleared her throat and said loudly, "Can I take Sava

Carmichael glanced up from her work, sweat streaming down her broad face.

"What's she doing here?" she said, waving at Leah. "Put her back in her cell."

The guards jumped to obey, as they hadn't for Matasumi. Two hustled Leah out. Sava

"I think-" she whispered.

She stepped closer. I laid a tentative hand on her shoulder and she melted against me. I patted her back and murmured wordless noises that I hoped sounded comforting. It seemed to calm her, probably not so much because of any consolation I offered, but because she saw me as her only remaining ally in a roomful of enemies. After a minute, she looked up at me.

"I think," she whispered again, "I think I might have done it."

"You couldn't-" I began.

"I wasn't sleeping. I was thinking about things-things Ruth told me. My lessons. Then I saw it. The clock. It flew-like the plate with the guard. I think I did it. I'm not sure how, but I think I did."

The impulse to deny her culpability sprang to my lips, but I bit it back. The look on her face wasn't that of a child begging to be consoled with well-meaning lies. She knew the truth and trusted me with it.

"If you did, it wasn't your fault," I said. "I know that."

Sava

"Time of death-" Carmichael began.

She lifted her arm, but she must not have put on her watch when summoned from bed. For a long moment, she stared at her wrist, as if expecting some magical timepiece to appear. Then she dropped her hand, closed her eyes, exhaled, and walked from the cell.

It was over.

CHANGES

Once everything quieted down, Matasumi realized I was there. Of course, he'd seen me there earlier, but he hadn't realized what it meant, namely that I was someplace I definitely should not have been. He hustled me back to the infirmary with four of the remaining guards.

I spent the next few hours lying on my cot, staring at the lights blipping on Bauer's machines. Ruth was dead. Could I have done something to prevent that? Should I have? She'd known the risks. That didn't make me feel any better. Now she was dead and Sava

Of course, Sava